Zuckerberg photo raises question: Should you tape your webcam?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posts a photo on Tuesday, June 21, celebrating Instagram's milestone of reaching 500 million users. The computer pictured in the photo drew widespread online interest because of some unusual details.

Photo: Facebook / Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo on Facebook Tuesday, announcing that half a billion people a month were now using Instagram. Yet the picture he posted alongside the boast proved more interesting than the milestone.

A Facebook spokeswoman said she could not confirm whether the laptop was one regularly used by Zuckerberg.

So we don’t know for sure if Facebook’s CEO blocks his computer’s webcam with a piece of tape. But experts say it’s not a bad idea in an age when hackers are trying — and sometimes succeeding — in taking over computers and spying on them through built-in audio and video recording hardware.

Jeremiah Grossman, the chief of security strategy at Palo Alto cybersecurity startup SentinelOne, said it’s just good practice for keeping yourself secure.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posts a photo on Tuesday, June 21 celebrating Instagram's milestone of reaching 500 million users. The computer pictured in the photo drew widespread online interest because of some unusual details.

Photo: Facebook / Mark Zuckerberg

“Your machine might get malware, or a thousand other things,” he said. “It’s a cheap and easy way for people to protect their own privacy.”

A broad variety of remote access tools can be used to turn on the front-facing cameras found on most laptops without triggering built-in lights meant to signal that the camera is in use. Cover up the lens, however, and the camera can only tape, well, tape.

Some people go further and put a nonworking plug in the audio jack. That, Graham said, prompts computers to ignore the built-in microphone. That approach is not foolproof, though, since the computer’s software — which is vulnerable to malware — ultimately controls whether the built-in microphone is on.

That means that hackers could potentially bypass the jack in the same way they could switch on a webcam without turning on an indicator light.

Following these security procedures could make your computer less useful. Microsoft Windows 10 has Cortana, a voice assistant, built in, and an upcoming version of the Macintosh operating system will have a version of Siri, Apple’s voice-command software for iPhones.

And video chat is a popular use of laptops.

Tape over your audio and video inputs, and you cut yourselves off from those features.

Sean Sposito covers information security and data privacy for The San Francisco Chronicle; previously, he was a data specialist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His byline has appeared in American Banker, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Boston Globe, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Record of Bergen County, NJ.

He’s also a former data analyst at the National Institute of Computer Assisted Reporting.